Sunday, July 29, 2012

Day Care Center

Just recently, I came across some
photos. Black and white, 8 by 10, they were taken years ago by an art student who had
spent his day working on project at the college day-care center my daughter
attended when I was a student.

One of the photos shows my
then-toddler digging in the dirt beneath the monkey bars in on a platround.. It’s one of those first warm days in
February, when the kids are let out to play after a long winder of cabin fever.
She’s wearing an unzipped hooded coat, its white acrylic fur trim noticeably grey.
She is bent over her task; her coat is dragging on the ground. In another
photo, she is one of a group of toddlers, assembled in a circle for a story hour.

I didn’t think much about the
photos back then. “That’s what kids do in day care centers,” I figured.
“Playing in the dirt, listening to stories.” “Hmmm…” I thought then. “I see how
that white trim on her coat gets so grey.”

But looking at the photos
now,I am struck by her singular
absorbtion. I look more closely. She’setching
a design with a twig in the now-flattened sand that is often put down in
playgrounds to break a child’s fall. It occurs to me that she must have noticed
the ground was newly thawed. No longer frozen solid, it was just right for
digging. Oblivious to the camera, she has taken some time out to examine her
new find. In the blurred background of the other photo, I recognize one of the
toddlers and Hank, the teacher in charge, who is reading the story. The camera
focuses in on my daughter, seeming to highlight the thoughtful far-away look on
her face. Her attention is rapt, lost in the story.

It was in the mid-70s that my
daughter and I came to that day care center. I was 22 at the time. She was 2. It
was a very idealistic era in our nation’s history, a time of boundless optimism
and many new social initiatives. I had learned there were day-care programs for
children whose parents were students, a part of President Lyndon Johnson’s
“Great Society Programs” that extended federal subsidies to the middle class. But
the slots were all full everywhere I inquired, and the term was about to begin.
Then the director of the program, sensing my urgency, agreed to take in an
extra child. I was amazed at how simple it was. I was asked to document my
student status, my income and my child’s birth date. Fees were on a sliding
scale. I was a work-study student and had several scholarships.

I don’t remember much about
the college I attended back then. For me, it was an impersonal place, with much
the grey, graffiti-covered look of public institutions. I didn’t get to know
the faculty or take many courses in my major, my time being taken up with
transfer-student paperwork, and meeting the graduation requirements of yet
another school. A lot of my classes were in huge lecture halls, where there was
little interaction between teacher and student. Since the student body
consisted of commuters, I rarely saw my classmates outside of w graduation
requirements of yet another school. When I had a few hours free I worked.

But I remember just about
everything about that day care center. For
me, that day care center was an oasis, an island of colorful crayon crafts and
era-splitting joy, smack in the middle of the college campus. It was nothing
like those indifferent places that were mere parking spaces for children.
Rather, it was a miniature Sesame Street. The pupils and teachers came from a
range of social and economic backgrounds. Here, a spirit of multiculturalism,
camaraderie and learning reigned. The child-teacher ratio was remarkable, about
3 to 1. In ``addition to the salaried
teachers who were there all day, early childhood majors would drop by. The
parents, mostly students like me or college staff, also got involved. The
friendships I established here extended well beyond the program.

Every morning, the lively
young teachers greeted my toddler by name. Throughout the day, they were there,
ready to pick up a child who had fallen down, offer a colorful band-aid or to
coax a smile. At the end of the day, one always took a few moments to chat with
me. I still remember some of the teachers’ names: Sally, Anna, Hank, Jim.
Several were parents themselves whose children attended the center.

On those cold mornings when
my daughter was groggy with sleep and I was rushing to class, I knew she could
eat there. In the midmorning, the aromas of spaghetti sauce and brownies would
waft across my path as I passed by on my way to class or work. On birthdays,
which were celebrated with a clockwork precision, the kitchen prepared a
special cake, and I could hear the entire school of about 60 pupils chime in in
an exuberant off-key chorus honoring the child of the day.

There were no lectures here,
but lessons were taught. They were about sharing, mutual respect,
responsibility. The kids took turns dishing out the meals, setting tables,
handing out coloring or craft supplies. There were rules too, rules that were
the same for everyone: The pupils were expected to wait their turn, and to pick
up after themselves. They were taught how to settle differences: No fighting
was allowed. And no biting. In this small microcosm, an ordered world
prevailed.

Here, kids learned that their
efforts were worthwhile. Their work was proudly displayed on the center’s
walls. “I made this,” my daughter would say at the end of the say, pointing out
a crooked oval shape she had drawn or perhaps a backwards “N” and a few
unwieldy letters.

That’s “Natalia,” she’d say, echoing her name.

But I wasn’t always aware of
the learning taking place there. Those days, I was always running with a
toddler in tow – running to meet the bus, running to the center, running to
work, running to class. I didn’t have much time to think about what she did
there. At the end of the day, I still had studying to do, a task that often
ended up hastily done or unfinished when balanced with the more urgent ,matters
of getting through the day. Those days I never had time, and much that demanded
my attention went unattended.

I will always remember one rainy afternoon, though. Carrying an umbrella, a rain-soaked
bag of groceries, and a backpack full of books, I was intent on getting home.
My daughter, in an oversized slicker and floppy galoshes, was lagging a few
steps behind, criss-crossing the sidewalk, making sure to splash in each
puddle. “Mommy! Wait! Wait!” she suddenly called out. “Look! Look! Circles!” We
stood in the downpour together and watched the heavy rain droplets create
circular concentric ripples as they hit the puddles. She had learned about
shapes in school that day.

Those are the images I am left with from those day-care center years, images of
me running, of her lagging behind, of me walking straight ahead, of her looking
at everything, thinking, dreaming....

Interestingly, when I was in school, I thought it was I who benefitted from that
day care program. Without it, I could not have received my degree. Also, the
centered countered the isolation I felt, being alone with a child in the city.
But only much later did I begin to realize what that experience meant for my
child. All through those harried years, there was a place where there was
always time for her. Here she had time to relax, to be herself, to be someone
special.

My daughter spent two years in that day care program. Then I was off to grad
school and she was old enough for nursery school. We were lucky. By that time,
daycare for students like me was no longer a mandate. I’ve often wondered since
then about parents and children just like me and my daughter who weren’t as lucky.Unlike me and my daughter, they have had no
place to go and no one to count on.

Particularly now, as our nation grows increasingly stratified financially, and so
many resources are available for those children who are privileged and so few for
the rest, it seems to me that programs like this one from years ago, need to be reconsidered to
level the playing field. Perhaps we also need to look at the European model, such as the one in France, that offers quality government-subsidized programs for all children, regardless of income.

I have an unlikely reminder
from those days in those text books that I tried to so hard to keep out of my daughter's reach. As I now look at the crooked oval shapes and unwieldy letters scribbled
in my books, I realize she had been practicing drawing a face and writing her name, something she learned at the center.

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I am a writer of commentary and literary essays. I believe that there is a moral component of writing that consists of a sense of social responsibility. I have personally seen how doing a small thing like writing a simple and well-thought-out commentary about a social injustice can make a difference by making people think, discuss and then act upon it. When I hear stories of human injustice or see the disturbing trends in our society, I am driven to think, analyze, write. When people say they don't care about what happens in the world because there is nothing they can do about it, I say that the least one can do is pay attention.
As an American-born child of Ukrainian expatriate parents who escaped the Soviet tanks, I realize one can never afford to be complacent.I also write to convey my love and respect for the culture in which I was raised and for the nation in which I now live. I also write to share the insight I have gleaned from my own personal experience. And then, of course, there is my joy and appreciation of words and language and in sharing this with others.